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Eric Lach

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Eric Lach is a reporter for TPM. From 2010 to 2011, he was a news writer in charge of the website?s front page. He has previously written for The Daily, NewYorker.com, GlobalPost and other publications. He can be reached at ericl@talkingpointsmemo.com

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Eric

Speaking on Morning Joe Thursday morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) compared the current situation in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker (R) has inspired days of protests by proposing a budget that would remove key bargaining powers for public employee unions, to the recent unrest in Egypt that toppled the 30-year authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak, saying it's "like Cairo has moved to Madison these days."

Ever fantasize about being in a shoot-out with murderous cartel members in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico? This summer, the video game company Ubisoft is scheduled to release "Call of Juarez: The Cartel," the latest installment in the "Call of Juarez" series. A couple of real life Texas lawmen are already expressing worries about the game.

The spirit of popular uprising that in a matter of weeks has toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt has now spread to several other countries in the region. Iran, Libya and Yemen have all seen protests this week. But the trickiest situation for the American government to react to could be the one in tiny Bahrain.

Republican lawmakers in Arizona have proposed a bill that would serve as a kind of follow-up to the controversial immigration law Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed into law last year. The bill would require hospitals to check the immigration status of each patient.

On Monday, a Pima County, Ariz., jury convicted Shawna Forde on two counts of first-degree murder for the May 2009 killings of Raul Junior Flores and his nine-year-old daughter Brisenia. Forde was also found guilty of attempted first-degree murder for the shooting of Flores' wife, Gina Gonzalez, along with several other charges, all stemming from a grisly home invasion that prosecutors said Forde masterminded to fund her border vigilante group. On Tuesday, the jury decided Forde is eligible for the death penalty.

After the verdict on Monday, Forde gave a jail house interview to The Daily Beast's Terry Greene Sterling, in which she maintained her innocence:

Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents were shot in Mexico earlier today, the agency has announced. The agents were driving between Mexico City and Monterrey, Mexico, and were attacked by "unknown assailants."

Shirley Sherrod has issued a statement addressing the defamation suit she filed against Andrew Breitbart in D.C. Superior Court last week. Sherrod was forced to resign from her USDA job last year, after Breitbart posted an edited video of a speech she gave to a Georgia NAACP chapter.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed "Curveball" by German and American intelligence officials, now admits he made up tales of mobile biological weapons trucks and clandestine weapons factories in Iraq, information that was used by the Bush White House to press the case for war. He also says he'd do it again.

One hundred faculty members at UC Irvine signed a letter last week asking Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas to drop the charges against 11 Muslim students, 8 from UC Irvine and 3 from UC Riverside, who last year disrupted a speech on campus by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. On February 4, the DA's office announced that it was charging each student with "one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to disturb a meeting and one misdemeanor count of disturbance of a meeting."

D.C insider Neil Livingstone has decided to run for governor in Montana. Livingstone, a Republican, filed with the state's Commissioner of Political Practices on Friday and has launched a website and a Twitter account. TPM recently spoke to Livingstone after his firm, Executive Action, LLC, sponsored an event in support of an Iranian opposition group currently considered a terrorist organization by the State Department.